POLL: Whether Houdini Is A Clone?

[Sean Evans]

Hello group,

It seems the claimed owner of Houdini, one Robert Houdart, has convinced himself that Houdini is an original program and neither a derivative nor a cloned program

http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=534

Cordially,

Sean Evans

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Of course it is....a 3300 Elo program from a scratch,come on

BTW<I have A FireBird 1.1 personality that is stronger than Houdini 1.03a by 30-40 Elo and I am not a programmer....
Will post results soon....
Dr.D

[Peter C]

I (probably quite foolishly) trust Robert's word on the matter.

Peter

[Charles]

Of course it is....a 3300 Elo program from a scratch,come on

BTW<I have A FireBird 1.1 personality that is stronger than Houdini 1.03a by 30-40 Elo and I am not a programmer....
Will post results soon....
Dr.D

Just wondering .... have you done tests in both long and short time controls ? and this personality wins in all matches?
-- this is interesting.

[Charles]

Hello group,

It seems the claimed owner of Houdini, one Robert Houdart, has convinced himself that Houdini is an original program and neither a derivative nor a cloned program

http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=534

Cordially,

Sean Evans

For now all I have is Robert's word ... But there are some things for you to consider here:

Define a derivative.

Define a clone.

A good programmer can peruse existing code and write a new engine that is similar to say ippolit (without copy/paste) -- Is this new engine then a derivative or clone ? I think this is something that needs to be addressed first.

I would like to know how tournament organizers and ccrl come to this conclusion whether it be a clone or not.

[hyatt]

Hello group,

It seems the claimed owner of Houdini, one Robert Houdart, has convinced himself that Houdini is an original program and neither a derivative nor a cloned program

http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=534

Cordially,

Sean Evans

For now all I have is Robert's word ... But there are some things for you to consider here:

Define a derivative.

Define a clone.

A good programmer can peruse existing code and write a new engine that is similar to say ippolit (without copy/paste) -- Is this new engine then a derivative or clone ? I think this is something that needs to be addressed first.

I would like to know how tournament organizers and ccrl come to this conclusion whether it be a clone or not.

First, terminology.

"Clone" is an exact copy of a program. Usually produced by taking a .exe file (windows) and using a debugger to change key strings such as the program name, so that its origin will remain hidden. This has been done many times, particularly on chess servers.

"Derivative" is a modified copy, but starts from source rather than from executable. This makes it possible to actually change parts. Some change a lot. Some change so little that it might actually qualify as a "clone".

However, in today's discussions about the ip* and family of programs, most seem to intermingle those two terms and use then interchangably, which is not that unreasonable. Either term suggests the truth, which is that it is not an "original work" by any reasonable definition, and can't participate in the usual computer chess events...

[Taner Altinsoy]

Hello group,

It seems the claimed owner of Houdini, one Robert Houdart, has convinced himself that Houdini is an original program and neither a derivative nor a cloned program

http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=534

Cordially,

Sean Evans

My question is why are you going after Houdini like a witch hunt? Are you going to open another topic after this one questioning Houdini's legality etc.? You had your answers in the mentioned thread. What else do you want to prove or want to know? Personally I don't have any problem even if it turns out it is a clone/derivative of another program. The only thing would be his ethical approach then. Considering this is a free and probably best engine I don't see any wrongdoing...

Your approach reminds me of the bullying made against the Ippo family engines in Talkchess. Instead of trying to make false accusations or make fun of him maybe you might want to open a thread in technical forum so that people who are experts on this field could have a decent discussion about it. He may even post there.

Taner

[Matthias Gemuh]

Sean will start a Houdini poll in CCC sooner or later. His actions are easy to predict.

[robbolito]

At least he has chosen the appropriate avatar:The clown.
To bad that the clowns like him can come and try to spoil the peace that we have on this forum.Since the CCC forum is a big circus anyway people like him should stay there.

[TPJR]

First, terminology.

"Clone" is an exact copy of a program. Usually produced by taking a .exe file (windows) and using a debugger to change key strings such as the program name, so that its origin will remain hidden. This has been done many times, particularly on chess servers.

"Derivative" is a modified copy, but starts from source rather than from executable. This makes it possible to actually change parts. Some change a lot. Some change so little that it might actually qualify as a "clone".

However, in today's discussions about the ip* and family of programs, most seem to intermingle those two terms and use then interchangably, which is not that unreasonable. Either term suggests the truth, which is that it is not an "original work" by any reasonable definition, and can't participate in the usual computer chess events...

But then Rybka is derivative of Fruit, and nobody cares.